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I
teaching and learning

Centuries before their continental neighbours, for whom Latin long remained the
major language of writing, the Anglo-Saxons had an extensive literature in their
own vernacular – Old English. The opportunity for widespread literacy had come
to them with their conversion to Christianity, which began with St Augustine’s
mission to Canterbury in 597. Within only a few years, the lawcode of the kingdom
of Kent had been put into English, the first vernacular document that we know of
(see Section II), and by the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 there was no
area of written discourse not represented by works in OE, whether as translations
or original compositions. Nevertheless, it was Latin which remained the official
language of the church throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, and far beyond it. Key
theological texts and the Bible were all in Latin, and so were divine services, and
therefore would-be monks and priests among the native population (whose mother
tongue was OE in its various dialectal varieties) had to learn it. A priority for the
missionaries at Canterbury, and their successors throughout the group of Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms which would eventually become England, was thus the setting up
of schools. All monasteries and cathedrals of any size needed one, and naturally
the medium of instruction, to begin with at least, would have to be the vernacular.
OE ‘glosses’ to Latin school-texts from Canterbury have been preserved, and Bede
tells us (in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: see p. 69) how he used
English in order to teach novice monks the Creed and other essential elements of
the Christian faith.
This bilingual process of teaching and learning persisted throughout the Anglo-
Saxon period, as surviving teaching materials show. Some of these are the work
of the monk and scholar Ælfric, who was in charge of the monastic school at
Cerne Abbas in Dorset during the closing years of the tenth century. He was the
product of a great revival in learning that had taken place in the wake of the
important mid-century reform and expansion of the Benedictine monastic system
in England. He devised his own teaching materials for the novice monks, including
very young boys, in his charge. These materials included a ‘colloquy’, a sort of
staged dialogue which Ælfric will have used to develop his pupils’ skills in the
Latin language; but someone later added an OE translation above the Latin text
and today, one thousand years on, this performs a function for students of OE
similar to that of the original Latin (Text 1). The schoolboys needed a good Latin

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primer, too, and Ælfric wrote one for them, the first ever in Europe in a vernacular
language; extracts from it are given here, including the preface in which Ælfric
expresses the motivation of his life’s work with precision: ‘through learning is
faith maintained’ (Text 4).
The relative importance of the vernacular in relation to Latin had changed
dramatically during the reign of Alfred (871–99) in Wessex, the last Anglo-Saxon
kingdom to remain independent of the encroaching Danes (see p. 37). Alfred
realised that Latin learning had been all but wiped out in England (though we
know that in parts of Mercia, at least, some sort of pedagogical tradition had in
fact survived), and he instigated a programme to establish widespread education
in English. This involved initially the translation from Latin of a series of essential
books of Christian instruction and their distribution round the country. Remarkably,
we can read about Alfred’s aims in his own words, in a letter which he sent out
from his base at Winchester, attached to copies of a book newly translated from
Latin (Text 5). His programme laid firm foundations for Anglo-Saxon vernacular
learning and pushed OE prose beyond its limited role as the vehicle for legal texts,
the narratives of saints’ lives and minor devotional works into a medium for the
transmission of all the basic tools of Christian scholarship. One of Alfred’s own
contributions was his translation of a popular medieval philosophical treatise, the
De consolatione Philosophiae (‘On the Consolation of Philosophy’) by Boethius,
a dialogue text teaching wisdom in adversity. In his version, Alfred emphasised
the Christian interpretation of fate and fortune as God’s will, and showed his own
gifts as a teacher by using everyday similes to explain the relationship between
God and humankind – as in the example of ‘The Wagonwheel of Fate’ (Text 6).
The bilingual character of an educated monk’s life in the later Anglo-Saxon
period is nicely illustrated by a little book that was once the personal property of a
Winchester monk called Ælfwine. It is known as Ælfwine’s Prayerbook and has the
flavour of a personal commonplace book, packed as it is with both devotional and
practical texts and also some more curious items, such as rules for ‘prognostication’
(the foretelling of future events). The texts are mostly in Latin but several are in OE,
including the three given below (Text 2). The use of the vernacular for practical
purposes is further illustrated by the extensive medical literature of the Anglo-
Saxons. Among the preserved works is a compilation known as Bald’s Leechbook,
and three helpful medical recipes from it, based on plants, are given here (Text 3).

Further reading
D. Bullough, ‘The Educational Tradition in England from Alfred to Ælfric: Teaching
utriusque linguae’, Settimane 19 (1972), 453–94

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J. M. Bately, ‘Old English Prose Before and During the Reign of Alfred’, ASE 17 (1988),
93–138
P. Lendinara, ‘The World of Anglo-Saxon Learning’, in Cambridge Companion, pp. 264–81
S. Foot, ‘The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity Before the Norman Conquest’, Trans-
actions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser. 6 (1996), 25–49; repr. in OE Poetry,
ed. Liuzza, pp. 51–78
D. Scragg, ‘Secular Prose’, in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. P. Pulsiano and
E. Treharne (Oxford, 2001), pp. 268–80

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1
In the Schoolroom
(from Ælfric’s Colloquy)

A ‘colloquy’ is a sort of formal dialogue between a master and his pupil and was
a format much used as an educational tool in the Middle Ages, both for imparting
essential knowledge and in the learning of languages, especially Latin. The text
known today as ‘Ælfric’s Colloquy’ is ascribed to Ælfric on the strength of a note
written in one of the manuscripts by someone who may have been a pupil at Cerne
Abbas in Dorset, where Ælfric spent some twenty years teaching in the monastic
school. Ælfric was the most prolific and influential of the writers who made the
later tenth century, following the reform and expansion of the monasteries, the
most productive in Anglo-Saxon letters. Little is known about the man himself,
but he was probably born about c. 950 somewhere in Wessex and entered the Old
Minster at Winchester as a boy, attending the monastic school run by Æthelwold.
Probably in 987, he moved to the monastery at Cerne Abbas, newly founded by
Æthelmær, son of the wealthy Æthelweard, who was a kinsman of King Æthelred
and ealdorman (i.e. ruler under the king) of the West Country. Æthelmær and
Æthelweard were great patrons of the church, and thus of learning, and Ælfric
dedicated a number of his works to them, including his two great series of Catholic
Homilies (see p. 181) and his Lives of Saints (see p. 170). Ælfric did most of his
writing at Cerne Abbas, but in 1004 or 1005 he moved to Eynsham, near Oxford,
to become abbot of another foundation endowed by Æthelmær, and there he died
c. 1010.
Thus the Colloquy fits well with Ælfric’s role as an educator, and it would have
been an obvious companion for two other teaching aids which he prepared – a
beginner’s grammar of Latin (the Excerptiones: see Text 4) and a Latin–English
Glossary, which appears with the grammar in some manuscripts. The OE version of
the Colloquy given here was not, however, the work of Ælfric (who would scarcely
have needed it and would not have made the errors of translation which characterise
it) but was added later above a copy of his Latin text. Although four manuscripts
of this are preserved, only one of them (British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. iii,
fols. 60v–64v) has the complete OE gloss; text and gloss were probably copied
together in the second quarter of the eleventh century from an older manuscript,
perhaps at Canterbury, for the manuscript belonged to the library of Christ Church.
The OE gloss was perhaps made by a pupil, or even by a teacher who was less
accomplished than Ælfric and in need of a crib for himself. Such glosses usually

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1. In the Schoolroom 5

follow strictly the order of the glossed language (here Latin) and therefore do not
read idiomatically as a continuous text. Nevertheless, the glossator of the Colloquy
has usually preferred natural OE word order in short phrases: thus he writes ic eom
bysgod, ‘I am occupied’, above the Latin occupatus sum, not a literal rendering,
‘occupied am’. In the edited extracts given below, a few alterations have been
made, mainly in the word order, and in a few cases frequently used phrases which
the glossator did not bother to repeat have been supplied.
Apart from its proven usefulness as a learning text, one of the most fascinating
aspects of the Colloquy is the light it throws on the everyday life of members
of feudal Anglo-Saxon society who are otherwise hardly known to us, such as
ploughmen and shepherds. The extracts given here are from the opening section,
where we meet some impressively virtuous pupils, and the closing section, where
a youngster who might be from the classroom itself is quizzed about his day in
the monastery. It is a wearying day (and night). Monks were required to attend
a series of eight church services (the canonical ‘hours’ or ‘offices’, specified in
the Benedictine Rule), each of which consisted of its own arrangement of psalms,
hymns, readings and prayers. They began around 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. with the longest
and most elaborate, the ‘Night Office’ (also known as ‘Nocturns’ or ‘Matins’),
and ended in the late evening with ‘Compline’. But, as will be seen below, the
simple series became elaborated considerably by additions; many of these were
made in the tenth century by the industrious continental reformer Benedict of
Aniane. In its original form, the Latin component of the dialogue was obviously
contrived to give schoolboys practice in the use of the correct terms for all these
devotions.
The language shows many of the characteristics of WS written in the first half
of the eleventh century, but with much inconsistency. Late variations in unstressed
word-endings (the result of ‘levelling’: see p. xxi) include -on for -um in mı̄non
(37; but cf. hundum in 34) and -on for -an in oxon (20, but cf. oxan in 25). In
scēphyrdas (15) there is typical late WS ‘smoothing’ of the diphthong of scēap-,
but cf. scēap (33). The writing of k for c is common in late OE texts, as in geiukodan
(21), melke (35) and weorkes (10), but cf. weorc (18); t for d is written in mit (22)
and synt (15), but cf. mid (11, 25, etc) and synd (45); and intrusive c is written
after final g in yrfllingc (18) and flingc (56), but cf. fling (39). Other orthographical
variation includes the frequent use of y for the short vowel i: thus byfl, syndon, ys,
sprycst, syngan, etc; but both hit and hyt occur (4 and 30), flisum and flysum (43
and 42), and so on. For the second-person present tense of etan, ‘eat’, both etst
(58) and ytst (53, 55) are used. The glossator of the Colloquy committed many
clear errors (that is, spellings which it is hard or impossible to accept as variant
forms or mere inconsistencies); these have been corrected in the text below (and
are listed on p. 345).

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Further reading
G. N. Garmonsway, ed., Ælfric’s Colloquy, rev. edn. (Exeter, 1978)
G. N. Garmonsway, ‘The Development of the Colloquy’, in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in
some Aspects of their History and Culture presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. P. A. M.
Clemoes (London, 1959), pp. 212–47
E. R. Anderson, ‘Social Idealism in Ælfric’s Colloquy’, ASE 3 (1974), 153–62; repr. in
OE Poetry, ed. Liuzza, pp. 204–14
J. Ruffing, ‘The Labor Structure of Ælfric’s Colloquy’, The Work of Servitude, Slavery
and Labor in Medieval England, ed. A. J. Frantzen and D. Moffatt (Glasgow, 1994),
pp. 55–70.
D. W. Porter, ‘Ælfric’s Colloquy and Ælfric Bata’, Neophil. 80 (1996), 639–60

‘Wē cildra° biddafl° flē°, ēalā° lārēow°, flæt flū° tǣce° ūs sprecan°, forflām°
ungelǣrede° wē syndon° and gewæmmodlı̄ce° wē sprecafl°.’
‘Hwæt wille gē sprecan?’
‘ Hwæt rēce wē hwæt wē sprecan, būton° hit riht° sprǣc° sȳ° and behēfe°,
5 næs° ı̄del° oflfle° fracod°?’
‘Wille gē bēon° beswungen° on° leornunge?’
‘ Lēofre ys ūs bēon beswungen for° lāre° flænne° hit ne° cunnan°. Ac° wē
witun° flē bilewitne° wesan° and nellan onbelǣden ūs swincgla , būton° flū bı̄°
tōgenȳdd° fram° ūs.’
10 ‘Ic āxie° flē, hwæt sprycst flū? Hwæt hæfst° flū weorkes ?’

1 children beg you O master you teach sbj to speak because 2 ignorant are badly
(i.e. ungrammatically) speak 4 as long as correct speech is sbj proper 5 not frivolous
or base 6 be beaten during 7 for (the sake of) learning than not to know But
8 know [witon] kind to be unless be sbj [bēo] 9 compelled by 10 ask have

3 wille gē ‘want you’, i.e. ‘do you want’. The pl. inflection on the vb. is reduced (wille,
not willafl) because it precedes its pron. [§G6f].
4 Hwæt rēce wē ‘What care we?’, i.e. ‘What do we care?’; again, -e for -afl. The
Benedictine Rule stressed the importance of the correct articulation of Latin, both in reading
aloud and in chanting. Boys were punished for errors; see also 48n.
7 Lēofre ys ūs bēon ‘It is dearer to us to be’, i.e. ‘We would rather be’. hit The antec.
is lāre, a fem. noun, so the obj. pron. ‘ought’ to be hēo, ‘her’ (not ‘it’) in OE, but here
‘natural’ gender is being used [§B/overview].
8 nellan onbelǣden ūs swincgla The infin. vb. nellan (a conflation of ne and willan)
is, like wesan in the same line, governed by wē witun: ‘(we know you) to be unwilling to
inflict strokes on us’; infin. onbelǣden would more regularly end with -an.
10 weorkes gen. of respect: ‘by way of work’; k for c is a late spelling.

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‘Ic eom geanwyrde° monuc and ic sincge ǣlce° dæg seofon tı̄da° mid°
gebrōflrum°, and ic eom bysgod° on° sange° ac flēahhwæflere° ic wolde°
betwēnan° leornian sprecan on lēden° gereorde°.’
‘ Hwæt cunnon flās flı̄ne gefēran ?’
15 ‘Sume synt° yrfllincgas°, sume scēphyrdas, sume oxanhyrdas, sume ēac
swylce huntan°, sume fisceras, sume fugeleras°, sume cȳpmenn°, sume
scēwyrhtan°, sealteras , bæceras°.’

‘Hwæt sægest flū, yrfllingc? Hū° begǣst° flū flı̄n weorc?’

‘Ēalā lēof hlāford , flearle° ic deorfe°. Ic gā° ūt on° dægrǣd°, flȳwende°
20 oxon tō felda°, and iugie° hig° tō syl°. Nys hit swā stearc winter flæt ic durre°
lūtian° æt hām° for ege° hlāfordes mı̄nes; ac, geiukodan oxan and gefæstnodon
sceare and cultre mit flǣre syl , ǣlce dæg ic sceal° erian° fulne° æcer° oflfle
māre°.’
‘Hæfst° flū ǣnigne gefēran?’
25 ‘Ic hæbbe sumne° cnapan° flȳwende oxan mid gādı̄sene°, fle° ēac swilce nū
hās° ys for° cylde° and hrēame°.’
‘Hwæt māre dēst° flū on° dæg?’
‘Gewyslı̄ce° flænne° māre ic dō. Ic sceal fyllan oxena° binnan° mid hı̄ge°
and wæterian hig, and heora° scearn° beran° ūt.’

11 professed each times with 12 (my) brothers (i.e. fellow-monks) occupied with
singing nevertheless would like 13 in the meantime Latin language 15 are
ploughmen 16 hunters fowlers merchants 17 shoe-makers bakers 18 How carry
out 19 very hard labour go at daybreak driving 20 (the) field yoke them (the)
plough dare 21 hide home fear (of +g) 22 must plough full (i.e. complete) field (or
acre) 23 more 24 Have 25 a (certain) boy ‘goad-iron’ (i.e. cattle-prod) who
26 hoarse because of cold shouting 27 do during 28 Certainly still of (the) oxen
bins ap hay 29 their muck as carry

14 Hwæt cunnon fl ās fl ı̄ne gef ēran The vb. is used in its sense of ‘know how to’ or ‘be
able to (do something)’: ‘What can these friends of yours [lit. “these your friends”] do?’
15–16 ēac swylce ‘also likewise’, or simply ‘again’; see 25 also.
17 sealteras ‘salters’. The salting of meat to preserve it was a crucial aspect of food
production.
19 lēof hlāford lēof is the adj. ‘dear’, so the phr. is lit. ‘dear lord’, but lēof can also
mean ‘sir’, as in 31 and 33; the phr. here may best be translated simply as ‘master’.
20 Nys hit swā stearc winter fl æt lit. ‘It isn’t so stark a winter that . . .’, i.e. ‘There is
no winter so severe that . . .’; nys is a contraction of ne ys.
21–2 geiukodan . . . mit fl ǣre syl ‘(with the) oxen yoked and the share and coulter
fastened to [mit for mid, lit. “with”] the plough . . .’ The OE imitates a Latin construction
known as the ‘ablative absolute’. The share and the coulter are iron blades which perform
the cutting action of the plough.

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30 ‘ Hig! Hig! Micel° gedeorf° ys hyt.’

‘Gēa° lēof°, micel gedeorf hit ys, forflām ic neom° frēoh° .’

‘Hwæt sægest flū, scēaphyrde, hæfst flū ǣnig gedeorf?’

‘Gēa lēof, ic hæbbe. On forewerdne° morgen ic drı̄fe mı̄ne scēap tō heora
lǣse° and stande ofer hig on hǣte° and on cyle° mid hundum°, flē lǣs wulfas
35 forswelgen° hig; and ic āgēnlǣde° hig on heora loca° and melke° hig tweowa°
on dæg, and heora loca ic hæbbe ; and cȳse° and buteran ic dō° flǣrtō°. And ic
eom getrȳwe° hlāforde mı̄non.’

‘fiū, cnapa, hwæt dydest tōdæg?’

‘Manega° fling ic dyde. On flisse niht, flā flā cnyll° ic gehȳrde°, ic ārās°
40 on° mı̄non bedde and ēode° tō cyrcean° and sang ūhtsang mid gebrōflrum.
Æfter flām, wē sungon be° eallum hālgum° and dægrēdlı̄ce lofsanges ; æfter
flysum, prı̄m and seofon seolmas° mid letanı̄an° and capitolmæssan°; syflflan°

30 Great labour 31 Yes sir am not [ne eom] free 33 early 34 pasture heat cold
dogs 35 devour sbj lead back folds ap milk twice 36 cheese make as well
37 loyal (to +d) 39 Many ‘knell’ (i.e. sounding of the bell) heard got up 40 from
went church 41 about saints 42 psalms the litany first mass then

30 Hig! Hig! Here hig represents an exclamation, ‘O!’ or ‘Ho!’ In 20, 29, etc, the same
spelling is used for the pl. pron. (nom. or acc.) hı̄ (or hı̄e) and in 28 it is the word for ‘hay’
(with long vowel, and given the dat. ending -e).
31 ic neom frēoh Ploughmen in Anglo-Saxon England generally were slaves (see
7/headnote).
34 fl ē lǣs lit. ‘the less’, i.e. ‘lest’ or ‘in case’ (flē is instr.).
36 hæbbe ‘hold’, in the sense of ‘look after’. In fact, the glossator has misunderstood
Lat. moueo, ‘I move’.
39 On fl isse niht The Anglo-Saxons associated the night-time with the day following;
thus ‘this night’ (lit.‘in this night’, acc.) would for us be ‘last night’. fl ā fl ā lit. ‘then when’,
but simply ‘when’ in trans. The noun cnyll is without a def. art., which would be flone, acc.
sing. masc.
40 ūhtsang lit. ‘dawn-song’, i.e. ‘Matins’ or ‘Nocturns’, the name given to the first of
the series of fixed ‘offices’ or services; it might be held at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., depending on
the time of year, and could last as long as two hours.
41 dægrēdlı̄ce lofsanges ‘morning hymns [lit. “songs of praise”]’. This refers to the
second fixed office, that of ‘Lauds’, sung at first light – and here apparently elaborated to
include hymns to ‘all saints’. Lofsanges is a late (or simply erroneous) spelling of acc. pl.
lofsangas.
42 prı̄m ‘Prime’. The first of several shorter fixed offices for the day. It was held at
6 a.m., the time considered to be the start of the day and thus called in Latin prima hora, the
‘first hour’. Prime for our schoolboy is followed by yet more ‘extras’: recitation of the seven
so-called ‘penitential’ psalms (pss 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143), a litany (an invocation
for mercy addressed to God through a series of named saints as intercessors), and a ‘first
mass’.

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undertı̄de , and dydon° mæssan be dæge . Æfter flisum wē sungon middæg ,
and ǣton° and druncon and slēpon°, and eft° wē ārison and sungon nōn. And
45 nū wē synd° hēr ætforan° flē, gearuwe° gehȳran hwæt flū ūs secge°.’
‘Hwænne wylle gē syngan ǣfen oflfle nihtsangc ?’
‘fionne° hyt tı̄ma byfl .’
‘Wǣre flū tōdæg beswuncgen ?’
‘Ic næs°, forflām wærlı̄ce° ic mē hēold .’
50 ‘And hū flı̄ne gefēran ?’
‘Hwæt° mē āhsast° be° flām°? Ic ne dear° yppan° flē digla° ūre°.’ Ānra
gehwylc wāt° gif hē beswuncgen wæs oflfle nā°.’
‘Hwæt ytst° flū on dæg?’
‘ Gȳt flǣscmettum ic brūce , for›ām cild ic eom under gyrda° drohtniende°.’
55 ‘Hwæt māre ytst flū?’
‘Wyrta° and ǣigra°, fisc and cȳse, buteran and bēana and ealle clǣne flingc
ic ete mid micelre flancunge°.’
‘Swȳfle° waxgeorn° eart flū flonne° flū ealle flingc etst fle° flē tōforan° synd.’

43 (we) attended 44 ate slept next 45 are before ready may say sbj 47 When
49 was not [ne wæs] carefully 51 Why (you) ask about that dare betray (to +d)
secrets our 52 knows not 53 eat 54 rod living 56 Vegetables eggs
57 thankfulness 58 Very greedy when that before

43 undertı̄de This is ‘Terce’, the next fixed office, which took place at 9 a.m. (at the
‘third hour’, Lat. tertia hora). The OE word, properly underntı̄d, means ‘morning-time’,
undern referring to the period between 9 a.m. and noon. mæssan be dæge ‘the mass for
the day’; another extra act of devotion. middæg The next fixed office, ‘Sext’, so called
because held at the ‘sixth hour’ (Lat. sexta hora) or ‘midday’, as the OE has it. Only after
this office do the monks have their first meal of the day, followed by a little sleep.
44–5 nōn ‘None’; the fixed office held at 3 p.m. (the ‘ninth hour’, Lat. nona hora). And
nū Finally, in the late afternoon, the boys reach the classroom.
46 ǣfen . . . nihtsangc These are the last two of the eight fixed offices: evening ‘Vespers’
(lit. ‘even(song)’) and finally the Night Office, ‘Compline’ (lit. ‘night song’).
47 byflfl ‘is’ or ‘will be’. On the use of byfl, see §G1a.iv.
48 beswuncgen Beating students for poor performance in chanting the psalms and for
falling asleep, among other transgressions, seems to have been a common practice. See also
the references in 54 and 72–3.
49 ic mē hēold ‘I kept myself’, i.e. ‘I conducted myself’.
50 hū fl ı̄ne gefēran ‘how (about) your companions?’ Along with beatings, reporting
others’ transgressions appears to have been a central element of monastic discipline.
51–2 Ānra gehwylc ‘Everyone’; lit. ‘each of ones’ (partitive gen.).
54 Gȳt flǣscmettum ic brūce ‘I still partake of meat’. The Benedictine Rule (chs. 39–
40) forbids monks to eat red meat but there is latitude for youngsters who are as yet novices.
The vb. brūcan here (and in 62) takes a dat. obj. (though more usually it takes a gen. in OE).
56 ealle clǣne fl ingc ‘every clean thing’. There were strict rules about what could be
eaten by monks; taboo foods included especially those contaminated by blood (see previous
note).

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‘Ic neom swā micel swelgere° flæt ic ealle cynn° metta° on ānre gereordinge°
60 etan mæge°.’
‘ Ac hū? ’
‘Ic brūce hwı̄lon° flisum mettum, hwı̄lon ōflrum, mid sȳfernysse°, swā swā
dafna›° munuce, næs° mid oferhropse°, forflām ic eom nān° gluto .’
‘And hwæt drincst flū?’
65 ‘Ealu°, gif ic hæbbe, oflfle wæter gif ic næbbe° ealu.’
‘Ne drincst flū wı̄n ?’
‘Ic neom swā spēdig° flæt ic mæge bicgean° mē wı̄n. And wı̄n nys drenc°
cilda° ne dysgra° ac ealdra° and wı̄sra°.’

‘Hwǣr slǣpst flū?’

70 ‘On slǣpern° mid gebrōflrum.’
‘Hwā° āwecfl° flē tō° ūhtsancge?’
‘Hwı̄lon ic gehȳre cnyll and ic ārı̄se, hwı̄lon lārēow mı̄n āwecfl mē stı̄fllı̄ce°
mid gyrde.’

59 glutton kinds of food(s) meal 60 could sbj 62 sometimes moderation 63 (it) is

fitting for (+d) not voracity no 65 Ale don’t have [ne hæbbe] 67 wealthy buy
drink 68 of children of foolish (men) of old (men) of wise (men) 70 dormitory
71 Who wakes for 72 sternly

61 Ac hū? lit. trans. of Lat. sed quomodo: ‘but in what way?’; perhaps, ‘But how
is that?’
62 swā swā Double conj. (lit. ‘so so’ or ‘as as’): ‘just as’.
63 gluto The Latin word is used to gloss itself, though swelgere was used earlier (59).
Later English adopted the word, initially as ‘glutun’, then ‘glutton’.
66 wı̄n The Benedictine Rule in fact allowed novices a little wine in the morning; but
in England all wine was imported, and thus expensive.

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